


Advance and Follow

by mercuriosity



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-09
Updated: 2009-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuriosity/pseuds/mercuriosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ones left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advance and Follow

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers through Chapter 342.

He's young. So young, she jokes sometimes that Asuma left her with two children to look after, not one. She doesn't say it very often, though, because while outwardly he smiles, at the same time he gets a determined light in his eyes that tells her he's thinking about his promise and vowing to grow up faster.

She'd like to imagine she's only concerned for his sake, but the truth is: it's his youth as much as anything that draws her to him. He isn't Asuma, and she doesn't want to imagine he is. She doesn't know what she wants, exactly—just to take what he tries to give her, maybe.

\---

Sometimes, the angle of the cigarette dangling from his lips fools her heart for half a second—though he only bites it, he doesn't smoke around her. ("It might be bad for the baby," he'd said.) His hair has the same rough texture under her fingers. And—that's where the similarity ends.

He's inexperienced and his touch is unsure, and very often she has to show him what to do. His hands are smaller, with fewer callouses. His cheeks are still baby-soft, and when he kisses her—on her neck, her stomach, between her legs—it feels nothing alike.

And though Asuma would smile in the dark and whisper assured, affectionate nothings in her ear—when she looks up and sees him staring at her with a look of intense concentration, a frown creasing his forehead—as if she is a complex puzzle he can figure out if he just thinks hard enough—she trembles and shakes and comes completely apart.

\---

In the middle of the night she wakes, senses groping outward for the cause. She looks down and sees: Shikamaru's head resting against her rounded belly, his lips moving quietly in the dark. She can feel his breath against her skin more than she can hear him, but she catches faint scraps of sound: _I miss you_, he whispers, and _I'm sorry._

_I wasn't strong enough_, he says to the swell of her abdomen. _I'll make it up to you._

She shivers, although the night is warm. Her narrow bed suddenly seems too full; she can't get room to draw breath.

She doesn't sleep again until the ghosts leave with the first rays of sunlight.

\---

There are complications. The baby's chakra isn't compatible with hers; it happens, sometimes; crossed wires. The last thing she remembers clearly is Shikamaru's white-knuckled grip on the bed railing before they wheeled her into this room where he can't follow. Her mind reels—from pain, the anesthetic, the chakra manipulation—confused thoughts swirling in her head along with the smells of blood, sweat and antiseptic. She wonders if this is what this child needs in order to come into this world—the sacrifice of two lives for a new one. She decides it's not an unfair trade. She isn't worried about the child—never knowing mother or father, perhaps, but not _alone_, which is as much as any shinobi can hope to leave their child. And Shikamaru will recover; he's more capable than he knows; he doesn't _need_ her. She thinks she could be at peace. Still, it would be cruel.

Nurses pass needles and knives above her. The bright hospital lights dance and fade and merge into one another. She blinks, and for a moment she sees, very clearly, Asuma standing by the side of her bed. He's smiling at her, one hand outstretched. Her hand is halfway to closing the distance and grasping his when she remembers Shikamaru's white knuckles, his tense brow, and she stops, confused.

She's a shinobi—it's not the first time she's thought she was going to die; but it's the first time she's ever felt so torn between this world and the next.

\---

The first thing she sees when she wakes is Shikamaru's pale face hovering above her, and she knows that they're going to live, all of them.

"She's beautiful," says Shikamaru.

The nurses bring the baby over and place her in Kurenai's arms; Kurenai gazes at the tiny, curled fingers, the wisps of soft dark hair, and wonders what kind of shinobi her daughter will be. A genjutsu user, like her mother? A physical fighter, like her father? Or something else altogether?

"What should we name her?" she asks.

"Tamako," says Shikamaru quietly, and Kurenai is puzzled until he lays the shogi piece—the king—on top of the coverlet; and then she understands, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> The name "Tamako" can be written as 玉子. The 玉 kanji also appears on the "jeweled general", or king, in shougi. Asuma tells Shikamaru that if shinobi like him are the "knights" who protect the king, the king itself is the next generation of Leaf Village children. (Naruto chap. 342)


End file.
